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Otto [[Weininger]] began to draft Sex and [[Character]] in 1900, at the [[time]] when Hermann Swoboda informed him of [[Freud]]'s [[interpretation]] of bisexuality, and the book was elaborated concurrently with an [[exchange]] of [[ideas]] between the two friends. In 1901, having registered his manuscript, then called [[Eros]] and [[Psyche]], in [[order]] to preserve his [[intellectual]] property rights, he wished to have it published and to this end this he met with Freud who took an unfavorable view of it. In 1902 Weininger successfully presented his reworked manuscript for his doctoral [[thesis]] in [[philosophy]]. He converted to [[Protestantism]] and then presented a [[third]] version of the book, which was characterized by the addition of chapters on [[Jews]] and [[women]] and the fact that he extended the metaphysical [[system]]. First published in 1903 by a major publisher, Braumüller, the book became a bestseller after its [[author]]'s [[suicide]]. It ran to twenty-eight editions between 1903 and 1947 and was translated into ten [[languages]]. Many articles in The Torch (Die Fackel) contributed to the success of the book, as did accusations of plagiarism, by [[Paul]] J. Moebius in 1904 and most of all by Otto [[Fliess]] in 1906. Otto Rank was convinced by the [[work]], each of its arguments reflecting his personal [[experience]]: "They were even expressed in my own [[terms]]," he said. In a footnote to Herbert Graf's ("Little [[Hans]]") [[analysis]], Freud wrote that "[[Being]] a [[neurotic]], Weininger was completely under the sway of his [[infantile]] [[complexes]]; and from that standpoint what is common to Jews and women is their relation to the [[castration]] [[complex]]" (1909b, p. 36). Although consisting of multiple [[philosophical]] digressions, Weininger's book does in fact revolve around a central question that brings it closer to [[psychoanalytic]] research, the [[impossibility]] of establishing a definite group relation between the [[sexes]]. For Weininger there were two [[ideal]] types, M and F, which are analogous to Platonic types. [[Real]] individuals were intermediary bisexual states, defined by their proportions of M and F. There was no break in [[nature]] between [[masculine]] and [[feminine]] but a bisexual [[structure]] in varied proportions which, because of [[psycho]]-[[physiological]] parallelism, involved both the microscopic [[body]] and the [[mind]]. This [[Male]]/Female mosaic explains [[sexual]] attraction, which seeks to achieve complementarity: a man with the equation 3/4M+1/4F seeks a [[woman]] with the equation 3/4F+1/4M. It thus transpires that the ideal relation would be between a [[homosexual]] man and a homosexual woman. However, men and women who are attracted to each [[other]] are corporally individuated; they are not types. Weininger realized that: "In spite of the infinite gradation of the intermediary forms, the [[human]] being is definitively either man or woman," but diverges from the point when he postulates a substance that he used as the basis of his characterology. The permanent confusion between the [[outline]] of substantialized types and empirical experience gives his statements [[about]] women a shocking character—"The absolute [[female]] has no ego" (p. 186). The same holds [[true]] for his comments on Jews, whom he compares to women, [[speaking]] of [[Judaism]] as a "Platonic [[idea]]" (p. 311). For this [[reason]] he sometimes has to explain that he does not [[wish]] to "lend the faintest support to any [[practical]] or [[theoretical]] [[persecution]] of Jews" (p. 311). [[Jewish]] himself, Weininger's thesis is a testament to what he calls "[[self]] [[hatred]]." ==See Also== * [[Wilhelm Fliess]] * [[Otto Weininger]] ==References== <references/> # Weininger Otto. (1908). Geschlecht und Charakter. [[London]]: Heinemann. (Original work published 1903) [[Category:New]] [[Category:Works]] [[Category:Sexuality]]
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